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Are these planets to be thought of as soulless or unsouled?
Suppose them, first, to be without Soul.
In that case they can purvey only heat or cold- if cold from the
stars can be thought of- that is to say, any communication from
them will affect only our bodily nature, since all they have to
communicate to us is merely corporeal. This implies that no
considerable change can be caused in the bodies affected since
emanations merely corporeal cannot differ greatly from star to
star, and must, moreover, blend upon earth into one collective
resultant: at most the differences would be such as depend upon
local position, upon nearness or farness with regard to the
centre of influence. This reasoning, of course, is as valid of
any cold emanation there may be as of the warm.
Now, what is there in such corporeal action to account for the
various classes and kinds of men, learned and illiterate,
scholars as against orators, musicians as against people of other
professions? Can a power merely physical make rich or poor? Can
it bring about such conditions as in no sense depend upon the
interaction of corporeal elements? Could it, for example, bring a
man such and such a brother, father, son, or wife, give him a
stroke of good fortune at a particular moment, or make him
generalissimo or king?
Next, suppose the stars to have life and mind and to be effective
by deliberate purpose.
In that case, what have they suffered from us that they should,
in free will, do us hurt, they who are established in a divine
place, themselves divine? There is nothing in their nature of
what makes men base, nor can our weal or woe bring them the
slightest good or ill.
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